Active Participation in Nursing Education: Barriers and Facilitators

Collaboration between students and faculty is becoming more common as the paradigm shift from teacher to learner-centered education occurs. This shift supports a host of innovative teaching/learning approaches which foster active participation. The purpose of this oral presentation for nurse educators is to present the qualitative results of a mixed model electronic survey of 946 nurse educators globally from the Sigma Theta Tau membership. The learner will be able to: 1) discuss challenges for nurse educators using innovative teaching learning approaches, and 2) suggest ways to facilitate more active participation of the learner.  Thematic analysis of the qualitative responses was conducted with the N-VIVO analysis package. Survey results demonstrate that the use of case studies (36%), evidenced-based (21%) and client/patient care scenarios (20%) as teaching/learning approaches and strategies are the most helpful in facilitating student learning. Ninety per cent of the respondents evaluated their teaching/learning approaches and provided some case examples of evaluation techniques; however, the survey response did not yield any tools of evaluation. Themes from the open-ended questions provide insights to barriers and facilitators for implementing the use of innovative teaching/learning approaches to promote active participation. Findings have implications for global nursing education in that themes were consistently shared across geographical boundaries. Further review and open critical discussion regarding the barriers and facilitators of teaching/learning approaches to advance the science of nursing education.